Egypt.An Egyptian court convicted forty-three NGO workers on Tuesday in a case against foreign-funded democracy promotion groups. The judge gave five year sentences to twenty-seven defendants tried in absentia, including a group of fifteen American defendants and the son of U.S. secretary of transportation Ray Lahood. The verdict also ordered the closure of the offices and seizure of assets belonging to the U.S. and German nonprofit organizations: the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States is “deeply concerned” and said the ordered closure of offices and seizure of assets “contradicts the government of Egypt’s commitments to support the role of civil society…especially at this critical stage in the Egyptian people’s democratic transition.”

Israel-Palestine. Secretary Kerry is set to return to Israel and Palestinian next week for the fifth time since becoming secretary of state in an attempt to restart direct peace talks. He will also visit Jordan.

This week marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of the death of Iran’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. On June 3, 1989, Khomeini died at the age of eighty-six, twelve days after undergoing surgery for bleeding in his digestive system. Khomeini led the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, returning to Tehran in 1979 after fifteen years in exile and helping to transform Iran into an Islamic republic.